Fran Dunaway is my guest for this episode. Fran is the co-founder of Tomboy X a gender neutral underwear brand based in Seattle.

Fran Dunaway Tomboy X Episode Transcript

Fran Dunaway [00:00:00]:
We didn’t come out trying to tell people how to be cool. We came out telling people we think they’re cool the way they are.

Scott Cowan [00:00:25]:
Welcome to the Exploring Washington State podcast. Here’s your host, Scott Cowan. Welcome back to this episode of the Exploring Washington State Podcast. My guest today is Fran Dunaway. Fran is the co founder of a brand called Tomboy X. So, Fran, what I would like you to do is give us the backstory of how you ended up in the Seattle area, because you’re not a native. So how’d you end up in Seattle?

Fran Dunaway [00:00:51]:
That is correct. I am not a Seattle native. I had just graduated with a master’s from the University of Missouri in Columbia, and my girlfriend and I were trying to decide whether to move to the mountains of Colorado or to the beaches of Florida. We came to Vancouver Island on a whim and ended up realizing that you could have both beaches and mountains, and so it was a pretty easy decision. After that, we loaded up the pickup a few months later and made the trek cross country.

Scott Cowan [00:01:25]:
So how long have you been yeah.

Fran Dunaway [00:01:28]:
That was in 1987, so I feel like I’m Washington native at this point.

Scott Cowan [00:01:34]:
Yeah, you get the pass. I think you’ve been there a long time. So that’s interesting that you were in Missouri. What did you get your master’s in?

Fran Dunaway [00:01:44]:
I got a master’s of education in counseling psychology. At the time, I was working in group homes for developmentally disabled children and adults, and so that was the degree that I got and brought out to the Northwest.

Scott Cowan [00:02:01]:
Okay, so what’s changed here since 1980? I’m curious to see your take on it. So what’s changed since 1987? Traffic, for one thing.

Fran Dunaway [00:02:13]:
Yeah, well, I started out I didn’t want to live in the big city of Seattle. Well, more specifically, my girlfriend didn’t. And we ended up in Bellingham and thinking what was a little larger. The ideal town to us was Port Townsend, but we thought, well, we don’t want to end up bagging groceries with a master’s degree, so better head to Bellingham. And turns out that the people bagging groceries had their master’s degree there as well. So it was a challenge to kind of we were wanting to get out of the kind of group home world and do something different, but lo and behold, ended up opening the first medically fragile group homes for kids in Washington.

Scott Cowan [00:02:58]:
State, and that was in Bellingham.

Fran Dunaway [00:03:04]:
The first one was actually located in McConnell, and then we expanded. So within five years, I was the executive director of the agency and had over 60 clients and 40 employees.

Scott Cowan [00:03:20]:
Wow. Okay. That makes me just think of herding cats.

Fran Dunaway [00:03:26]:
It’s a lot like that.

Scott Cowan [00:03:28]:
That just seems to be wow. Okay.

Fran Dunaway [00:03:32]:
Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:03:33]:
So when did you move down into the Puget Sound area?

Fran Dunaway [00:03:37]:
In 1994, moved to Seattle, and I had changed careers. I’d sold everything, and gone to film school and wanted to be a producer and so moved down to the Seattle area because it was a bigger market for the work that I was then interested in doing.

Scott Cowan [00:03:58]:
You’re interesting to me because you’ve made some serious pivots. That’s an overused word, but wow. Okay, so you went to film where’d you go to film school?

Fran Dunaway [00:04:08]:
At the UW or at Vancouver? Vancouver, BC.

Scott Cowan [00:04:12]:
Okay. All right. Well, it seems so different nowadays. It was easy to get to Vancouver back in the day. Now it seems like it’s. So let me let me ask you about that. So what was the after film school, what was that like for you? What projects? What type of things were you working on?

Fran Dunaway [00:04:29]:
Well, you know, I really love storytelling, and I’d always been kind of an amateur photographer, so my ideal would have been documentary at the time. It wasn’t a high paying occupation, and so I gave myself a year to not work or to not work for pay, because you kind of have to earn your chops in the film industry. So produced a few independent feature films and cobbled together gigs here and there. And then the following year, after my year was up of not getting paid, I started doing various video or film projects around the Puget Sound area, worked at Microsoft, did a variety of things, and then picked up a seasonal client doing political advertising for Democrats nationwide. And so that was just at the end of every year. It was like, oh, a good, steady and every year it took up more and more of my time. And then finally they hired me on full time, and a few years later, I ended up being a partner in the media strategies firm.

Scott Cowan [00:05:40]:
Wow. Okay. And then you started a company in your garage.

Fran Dunaway [00:05:47]:
Correct.

Scott Cowan [00:05:48]:
Like every good entrepreneur story, it involves a garage. But before we go there okay. I don’t know how much you know about this or how much research I do. Typically, I do very little research on my guests because I like to be surprised, the spontaneity of it. But I Googled your name, and there’s a lot of it. Your name is you’re easy to find. And so I did a lot more reading. I’m on the Puget Sound Business Journal right now, and it says and it’s quote, so I think it’s you. When we started this company, it was just supposed to be a side hustle in our one car garage. I mean, why leave a lucrative career with paychecks, vacations, and perks to leap off a cliff into the unknown? Okay. Clothing company, super easy field, no competition. But my question that I haven’t found the answer to yet online is.

Fran Dunaway [00:06:47]:
When.

Scott Cowan [00:06:47]:
You started this, were you actually making the clothing, or were you just the design team? Because that part I haven’t stumbled onto yet. So can you help me?

Fran Dunaway [00:07:01]:
Yeah, I’d be happy. And it was just this idea. I wanted a cool button up shirt. I like a Robert Graham type of shirt or Ben Sherman and made with the fine quality fabrics that you can find in menswear, but you couldn’t find in women’s wear. Women’s wear was much more fast fashion, so cheaper quality and no fun details around the collar, nothing with personality. And so I knew a friend that had worked for Tommy Bahamas. So I reached out to her and said, hey, can you help us design these shirts? And she said, sure. So she helped us design the first shirts, and we actually kind of did a mini collection, if you, you know, to be clear, Naomi and I, we didn’t know a knit from a woven do you hear that? Walking? Speaking of naomi and coffee. Hi, Naomi. Thank you very much. I’ll have to stop when I told Naomi, could you please go up and tell the woman with the high heels upstairs to go? But so I’ll just stop if I hear her. Yeah. We had a friend who’d worked at Tommy Bahama and said, can you help us design these shirts? We designed shirts, some polos and some knit blazers. So a mini collection, because at the beginning of this, my wife and I didn’t know a knit from a woven or a PNL from a balance sheet. So we had a lot to learn. So we were fortunate in that we found this. A friend of ours who helped us in that beginning part, we were able to find a woman owned factory here in Seattle, and she had the caliber of sewers and machinery that could produce these beautiful shirts that we came out of the gate with.

Scott Cowan [00:08:42]:
Okay, you can’t tell it by looking at me today, but I actually really enjoy Robert Graham’s shirts. So I have a lot of them, and I do love the attention to detail in them. They’re kind of cool.

Fran Dunaway [00:08:55]:
Exactly.

Scott Cowan [00:08:58]:
So you launched with a mini collection. Now, I saw that you did a Kickstarter, but how did you bring these to market? Were they in boutiques or did you just sell them online or at first how did this happen?

Fran Dunaway [00:09:13]:
Well, at first was definitely the Kickstarter. And we sold through quite a few of them in the Kickstarter campaign. And then we are still 99% direct to consumer. So, yeah, we’ve been online. We really chose a lane, which I think was an important decision for us early on. Rather than becoming a wholesale company, we chose to go the D to C route. It was pretty nascent opportunity, but there were some awesome things like this new platform, commerce platform called Shopify and a lot of plug and play. So it made it easy for us that Naomi was able to build the website, and off we went.

Scott Cowan [00:09:57]:
So Naomi built the website. Okay. And one of the things I read is you’re kind of the big thinker, the broad strokes, and she’s more maybe the detail orientated yes, companies need both. I applaud you on that but the shirts, the initial line but you ended up doing loungewear maybe that’s the right how did you guys get into what you’re into now? Where was the kernel that that grew from?

Fran Dunaway [00:10:34]:
And so the reality is that we knew we had something with the name and about a week into the Kickstarter campaign we had recognition and we were like, oh this name is really resonating with people around the world. We were hearing from women and girls that were like, yay, you’ve got a brand for me. Finally I’m seen and heard by a clothing company and so that to us was very interesting and I think that that was one of the smartest things we did a pick and stick with the name Tomboy and then B listen to our customer base. And so there was this mantra, this recurring mantra not only from customer service but from friends which was you guys should make boxer briefs for women. And we didn’t know that that wasn’t being done. And so I went on to Nordstrom.com and typed in boxer briefs for women and up came one pair of spanx and we were pretty sure that wasn’t what our customer was looking for. So we said let’s pursue this and told our friends who designed our shirts that we were going a different direction and put into the ether that we needed someone with sourcing and manufacturing experience that could help us with boxer briefs. A week later we received an email from a woman who had seen our shirts in the factory nine months previous. She was impressed by the attention to detail and the quality and the name and so she reached out to us to see if we might have any work for her. So needless to say we hired her on the spot and she set about making the first boxer briefs for women. And so several months later she found a factory up in Canada up in Vancouver. Cowan owned factory again and they worked together to design boxer briefs for a large variety of. Brought them. We pre sold them two weeks before they arrived hoping that we would sell enough to pay for them. And lo and behold, we sold out before they arrived.

Scott Cowan [00:12:38]:
How big was that initial order?

Fran Dunaway [00:12:40]:
I don’t know if that’s I think there were about 1600 units in the very first order. It was one pallet full and now we’re shipping two tankers full. So that’s how far we’ve come.

Scott Cowan [00:12:57]:
So first off, were you terrified when you ordered 1600 units?

Fran Dunaway [00:13:00]:
Yeah, it was a little disconcerting to know that we had a $14,000 nut to crack in two weeks and did not have the money and had no idea how we were going to come up with it. So it was a bit of a risk. But that’s what entrepreneurism is.

Scott Cowan [00:13:17]:
Oh yeah, no. Okay, so then you said you ship two tankers. I don’t know what that phrase tankers mean. What is that?

Fran Dunaway [00:13:26]:
Oh, containers is what I’m shipping.

Scott Cowan [00:13:30]:
Two containers at a time.

Fran Dunaway [00:13:32]:
Yeah, I think in the holidays we had four on the water.

Scott Cowan [00:13:37]:
Wow, okay.

Fran Dunaway [00:13:39]:
Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:13:40]:
So you sold out 1600 units and you probably at that point high fived each other and realized you might have caught a tiger by the tail. What came next? Did you go back to the factory ordering more or when did you start branching out? How long were you just in the boxer briefs and then before you branched out into other items?

Fran Dunaway [00:14:09]:
It didn’t take too long. It was pretty easy because there were so many different silhouettes that we could dive into. The bigger challenge was we evaluated. We looked at our numbers six months later and we had tripled our revenue. So we thought maybe we’re an underwear company and that’s where we need to put all of our eggs. But that takes some time to transition out because what we had done after the Kickstarter campaign, we knew that people were loving the name and the brand. We had instant brand recognition. If you think about that for a minute, that’s hard to come by with a name. You usually have to build brand into the names. But we had instant brand recognition. And so that was when we started trying to figure out what’s the smartest thing for us to do with that. And so obviously we got hats and we got T shirts and we would buy blanks and put our logo on it and sell those. And so when we brought in the boxer briefs, we of course wanted to keep those in stock and we right out of the gate, not only had diverse models and the people that we showed wearing our product even prior to the boxer briefs, but we carried extra small through four X right out of the gate. And that was important to us all for the same price because we felt like it was really important to not have that subtle shaming of you need to shop in the women’s department or the plus size area and pay more because you’re bigger. And so that to us didn’t feel right. And I think being part of a minority community, if you will, that really taught us how to come out of the gate being inclusive. And we also from the beginning kind of turned the whole notion of brand on its head because we didn’t come out trying to tell people how to be cool. We came out telling people we think they’re cool the way they are. And so those were key differentiators for us was the inclusivity and the reflection of feeling good in your own skin.

Scott Cowan [00:16:08]:
Now, I’m going to have to say you don’t sound like an accidental entrepreneur, which is what you’ve stated you were. You sound like you came out of the gates figuring this stuff out. I don’t know. I don’t know if you can really be branded as an accidental entrepreneur. Where did you guys come up with this savvy from the very beginning?

Fran Dunaway [00:16:31]:
Yeah. You know, I’m an army brat. And Naomi is from New York City. She’s second generation Cuban American. So I just think that we’re scrappy and make things work. We were always in very purpose driven careers. I think that was an intentional on both of our parts, that we wanted to be part of something we didn’t want, just a paycheck for paycheck. In fact, it was a conversation we had very early on, which is, how do you feel about becoming a capitalist? And if we do that, how do we do it in a way that is true to our values, and how do we kind of imbue our values into every decision that we make? And so that was a conscientious decision, just based on who we are. And then I think the other critical component here, because we’re now married, we were then girlfriends, but is that we both had the same tolerance for risk and didn’t really have too much of an emotional relationship with money. And so I think those were two very big things. We were always just know, I’ve got a house in Mississippi. We can always end up there and grow tomatoes if we have was. That was part of it. But it was really this drive to kind of provide a solution, fill a white space for a community that we knew very well and that had needs and desires. And so we very soon started carrying different cuts. We next introduced our boy Short, which is still our number one selling length. We now carry everything from a thong to a six inch boxer brief, and we carry them in triple extra small through six X. So we’ve expanded the categories, and then we have swimwear, we have sleepwear, we have loungewear, and we recently launched Activewear.

Scott Cowan [00:18:31]:
Wow. Help me out here, because I can’t even envision what size human being would wear a triple extra small.

Fran Dunaway [00:18:40]:
That would be the youth.

Scott Cowan [00:18:43]:
Okay. All right.

Fran Dunaway [00:18:44]:
Yes.

Scott Cowan [00:18:44]:
Okay.

Fran Dunaway [00:18:44]:
Without going into children’s clothing, we offer very small sizes. Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:18:49]:
Okay. All right. Because I’m like, wow.

Fran Dunaway [00:18:53]:
I was sitting with a ten year old last night, and she said, do you have my size? And I said, in fact, we do.

Scott Cowan [00:19:01]:
That’s awesome. Well, one thing I read online, since you mentioned Naomi is your wife now, I saw somewhere, can’t remember where, so I can’t give credit to where I read it. Your wedding was at a football game.

Fran Dunaway [00:19:18]:
We had a flash flag football wedding, as a matter of fact, the day before the Seahawks and the Patriots played. And it was a good thing we did it the day before because Naomi’s a diehard patch fan, and of course I’m a Seahawks fan. I know. So she wore Brady’s number, and I, of course, wore the twelve and we realized we had wanted to plan much more elaborate wedding. But the business was growing. We had just been accepted into an accelerator program, and the idea of trying to figure out how to plan a wedding a year out in the midst of growing a business was just insurmountable. So instead, we decided to invite everyone we knew to this flag football game, so nobody could say, you didn’t invite me to your wedding. And so everyone we knew was invited to a rainy day in Seattle to play flag football. And we had a friend who was a police officer and had just coincidentally become ordained to wed some other friends of hers. And so we said, hey, can you be the referee for the game? And then at the halftime, you blow the whistle and we do a ceremony and surprise everyone. And so it was pretty fantastic. I was bleeding from a tackle. And even though it was flag football, of course we got a little carried away. So here we are out in Seward Park, and we walk down to the water and get married. So it was pretty great. We were FaceTiming. So Naomi had called her brother and sister in law that morning, and I’d called my parents. Her folks are in New York and mine are in Mississippi. And so I called my parents and said, hey, we’re getting married tonight at six. Be ready. And it was really hysterical because we had them on FaceTime. We had designated two people to hold them on FaceTime so they could join us. And my parents, my dad military, he’s in his dress blues. And my mother’s got a gown on, they’ve got a bottle of champagne. And I see my mom lean into the camera and she says, are they playing football?

Scott Cowan [00:21:23]:
Oh, my gosh. So the question I’ve got out of all of this is, were you wearing your Seahawks jersey when you got actually okay, so you were actually wearing the unit.

Fran Dunaway [00:21:37]:
That’s our wedding gowns. Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:21:39]:
I love you. Did you guys normally have an organized football game that you participated in or.

Fran Dunaway [00:21:46]:
Was this no, this is just a random random.

Scott Cowan [00:21:50]:
Okay.

Fran Dunaway [00:21:51]:
In a week. We planned it in a week and pulled it off.

Scott Cowan [00:21:55]:
I love that. I love that. That’s awesome. That may be the most creative wedding I’ve heard of. Seriously? That’s so cool. Wow.

Fran Dunaway [00:22:04]:
It was fun. It was a lot of fun.

Scott Cowan [00:22:08]:
Oh, my gosh. Your dad’s in his military uniform and you’re wearing a football jersey. Oh, my gosh. Okay, we’ll back out of that rabbit hole and come back to the company. I wanted to ask that question. You brought it up.

Fran Dunaway [00:22:24]:
Well, it was so fitting, too, for Tomboys to have a football wedding, right?

Scott Cowan [00:22:28]:
No, I think it’s great.

Fran Dunaway [00:22:30]:
Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:22:32]:
Running a business is easy. Bringing fashion to the marketplace is easy. There’s never been any problem. I like to ask this question of entrepreneurs because I think we learn from it. What was an unexpected challenge that you guys stumbled on during your early phases that you weren’t prepared for?

Fran Dunaway [00:22:59]:
There were a lot of things. Number one is probably because my job I had two jobs, really. One was not to run out of money and not to screw it up. And then Naomi did everything else.

Scott Cowan [00:23:12]:
You had the hard job.

Fran Dunaway [00:23:13]:
Yeah, exactly. Oh, my God. So just fundraising. Fundraising was really hard. And excuse me, I get it, because here we were, a lesbian couple with zero experience in the industry, and we weren’t 25, and there were just a lot of things kind of stacked up against us. But also we just happened to be kind of riding the wave of the zeitgeist of what was going on. So I can’t tell you the number of times that I sat down trying to raise some money from a room full of white guys that would say, well, what’s wrong with Victoria’s Secret? And so they have since learned that they were behind the zeitgeist. But that was hard. And then there were just other things in terms of hiring and how you think about hiring when you’re working with three pls or third party logistics for your shipping. And just a lot of things that we had to kind of learn via the school of hard knocks. And so that’s just part of the journey. It’s neither here nor there, but there were certainly if I were doing it again today, I would do a lot of things very differently.

Scott Cowan [00:24:31]:
Give me an example of something you would do differently today.

Fran Dunaway [00:24:35]:
I think that well, I could say one of the first things would be well, A, I would have a network of people that I could easily get checks from. So that would be easy because now I have a tremendous network for investment. But the other thing, I think, would be one of the early lessons. When we stopped doing our shipping internally and we moved it outside, we went to a company that had a lot of experience with wholesale, but they didn’t really understand the direct to consumer. And then we moved the second move to not a very good one. So really finding that third party logistics or warehouse partnership early on that you can grow and scale with was important. And I think that we thought we could do it together, but that wasn’t the right lesson. We didn’t need to be teaching and learning with someone along the way. We should have gone with someone that knew what they were doing.

Scott Cowan [00:25:35]:
Okay, that’s wisdom. One of the things that I saw about you, and you’ve got a picture behind you. Sorry. Words can be hard for me sometimes on Ink 500. And I may be the only kid in America who started reading that magazine when it started coming out in, what, 1980? I always found Ink magazine to be fascinating, and the Ink 500 is and every year that I would look at it, I’d look and see what companies from Washington were in it just because it was interesting to me. What was that like? Because you’re the first person that I’ve ever had the opportunity to chat with that’s made that list thank you. That I’m aware of.

Fran Dunaway [00:26:21]:
Yeah. Well, we’ve made it four years in a row. We were on the Inc 500 the first two years. And so yeah, when it came out that first year, and I think it says we were 231, that’s pretty impressive. I was kind of blown away. I couldn’t believe that we made that list. And it’s all relative in terms of the size we were and the growth spurt, that was primarily because of introducing underwear, boxer briefs, and so, yeah, it was pretty incredible, and we were very proud of that. And then the fact that they came and shot our team and did a studio shoot, it was a big deal. It was very meaningful.

Scott Cowan [00:27:06]:
And now it’s four years in a row.

Fran Dunaway [00:27:08]:
Four years in a row. And in fact, yesterday’s Ink magazine came out and they featured us in the Couples Who Have Businesses Together section.

Scott Cowan [00:27:18]:
I’ve read that. So that was just yesterday. Somehow I read that this morning.

Fran Dunaway [00:27:22]:
Yeah, it just came out.

Scott Cowan [00:27:24]:
Another place that I saw you was in Forbes 50 over 50.

Fran Dunaway [00:27:29]:
Yes.

Scott Cowan [00:27:30]:
And how do I want to say this? We tend to celebrate young entrepreneurs, like the 30 under 30. The 40, it seems to cut off at 40. So the fact that Forbes talked about 50 year olds and you started this company when you were how old?

Fran Dunaway [00:27:51]:
I was 51.

Scott Cowan [00:27:53]:
51 years old. Okay. I think by the time we get to our 50s, most of us, I think, are fairly risk adverse because we’re looking to retirement and settle down and all this stuff.

Fran Dunaway [00:28:04]:
It’s very wise.

Scott Cowan [00:28:06]:
That’s not me. So I saw that article, and he kind of resonated with me because I’m like, all right, what has your peer group said to you? What? What does your peer group say when you guys started this? Did they think you were crazy?

Fran Dunaway [00:28:27]:
Yeah, it’s interesting. I don’t think we were really paying much attention to what anyone was saying about us at the time, but I’m sure that people thought it was crazy. It was crazy. Look, they aren’t wrong. It was absolutely insane, and it was a huge risk at that age to take. And again, we just kind of left, and then it kept feeling like, okay, there’s momentum. There’s something here, there’s something here. We have to keep at it and figure out what that is and what that means, and we can make a difference, and it’s really important to us, and we have made a difference. We’ve made a difference in tremendous difference in people’s lives, and we continue to make a difference. There’s something coming in May that’s going to blow everyone’s mind including mine that I can’t talk about, but it’s historical, and so that’s really why we did it. And so it was more of a responsibility than anything, especially in the early days. It was just that we had to do it. We wanted people like us to be seen and heard and recognized and representation is everything, and so it was just an option. And honestly, we lost some friendships because of the fact that we became so absorbed and obsessed and laser focused on building a company. And I think that people miss the old versions of us where we didn’t just want to talk about business all the time. But on the flip side of that, we now have a tremendous vibrant community of fellow entrepreneurs. And I feel like at 51, I found my people in a really solid, strong way. So it’s been a phenomenally, wonderful experience for me personally.

Scott Cowan [00:30:28]:
What did your parents say when you said you were going to open a clothing line and underwear?

Fran Dunaway [00:30:33]:
I think they’d been putting up with my insanity for so many years. I think they just probably rolled their eyes and thought, well, here she goes again. When I sold everything and went to film school, I think they were like, what? You’re executive director of a human services agency and you’re going to go do what? Yeah. I think at that point they were just like, okay, more power to you. They did write the first check, so they did support.

Scott Cowan [00:31:01]:
They did support. Okay, what more can we ask from our parents?

Fran Dunaway [00:31:06]:
I agree.

Scott Cowan [00:31:07]:
Yeah. What more can we ask of our parents? Well, one thing. Okay, so I had another question. So you kind of teed it up for me and I’m going to bungle it, but a gnome rogue.

Fran Dunaway [00:31:28]:
Oh, my God. World of Warcraft. Yes.

Scott Cowan [00:31:30]:
You played WoW.

Fran Dunaway [00:31:31]:
Yes, I did. I had a lot you were one.

Scott Cowan [00:31:33]:
Of those horrible little.

Fran Dunaway [00:31:37]:
You know, I like being in stealth mode. Oh, yes. I miss that game to this day, but my wife said, absolutely not. I’m not moving here from Washington, DC. If you’re going to stay up till four in the morning playing some game. So I had to give it up.

Scott Cowan [00:31:57]:
How many hours were you playing at your peak? I’m asking because I’m a reformed WoW player myself.

Fran Dunaway [00:32:04]:
Oh, you are? I somehow would have guessed that, Scott. Let’s see. I can’t even imagine how many hours I was playing, and it would depend. I was in political so during the political season, I was on the road 60, 70% of the time. So I didn’t play a lot then. But then after the election and I have the rest of the winter and it’s Seattle and it’s rainy, I can’t even begin to tell you how many hours I played. And I had a great group of, really, friends and family, and it was all we had from six year olds to 65 year olds in this. Group, and we would just go in and play together, and nobody would know that we’re this kind of misfit group of people out there taking on the dragons and all the I read that.

Scott Cowan [00:32:57]:
And I started laughing. I just thought, no, wait a second. This is not something that I think I’ve ever found published about an entrepreneur that they I played. Wow. Because, you know, the you know, the the hustle culture, the the grind all the time, and and I know this predates that for you, but if you could have seen my face when I read that for the first time. I was grinning. I was chuckling as I am right now.

Fran Dunaway [00:33:26]:
So you’ll know the inside joke, leroy Jenkins, then, yes, absolutely.

Scott Cowan [00:33:32]:
I started playing WoW when it first came out. I moved from another multiplayer game, and I stopped probably after the second or third expansion pack. It just started going in directions. I just didn’t quite I was like, I don’t know, storyline. My son I don’t know how many level 80 characters he had or has, but anyway, that’s one of those games where, oh, it’s only 10:00. Oh, it’s four in the morning. How did I just lose 6 hours of my life just without a blink?

Fran Dunaway [00:34:05]:
Exactly. Well, I’ve always been an early adapter of technology, and so I don’t know if you remember when the Sierra Kings Quest games came out, in fact, in my had a huge callus from playing Ms. Pacman all the time. So I’ve always been an early adapter.

Scott Cowan [00:34:24]:
All right, so I’ll share my nerd badge of honor. I can’t remember what year it was, but Nintendo had released their original Nintendo Entertainment System to the United States. Do you remember that?

Fran Dunaway [00:34:38]:
Oh, yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:34:39]:
And I was I don’t remember what I was doing exactly for work. It was his post college. There was an ad in the Seattle Post Intelligence there at that time, that paper doesn’t exist anymore. Really? And it was a full page ad saying, we’re looking for game counselors. Come and be a game counselor. Help people explore new worlds or blah, blah, blah, full page ad. And it was either 200 or 300 people applied for this job. And so I end up at the Nintendo campus, and their criteria was, well, which games have you beaten? And I started saying what I had claimed to beat, and they go, well, prove it. And I was one of two people they hired because I beat the three games that they were yeah, I had beaten the three games. Yeah. And I beat Zelda, Metroid and Kid Icarus. And in fact, on Metroid, I was able to show them some secret areas that were Easter eggs that were coded in, and I had found and so I was a game counselor at Nintendo for a while, answering phone calls from people across America on how to beat Super Mario Brothers. And I just did it for fun. It was just for fun. And then after that, I ended up selling software at Egghead Software.

Fran Dunaway [00:35:54]:
Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:35:55]:
And so I worked at the one in Bellevue by the Microsoft campus. So there’d be my first customer was Paul Allen. He came in to buy a magazine, and the manager, I’m like, ringing him up because it’s like, my first time at the cash register. Right. And the manager is, like, hovering over me, and thank you very much. And I’m just tunnel vision. And he goes, you know who that was? I go, no, I really don’t. He goes, that was Paul Allen. I had no clue because I couldn’t figure out the cash register at this moment in time.

Fran Dunaway [00:36:23]:
Amazing.

Scott Cowan [00:36:24]:
Yeah. I kind of adapted this stuff early, too, and I have to consciously keep myself away from it. Yeah, productivity is so are you playing any games now?

Fran Dunaway [00:36:36]:
Yeah, actually, we have the Xbox One, I think. I keep thinking I’m ready to upgrade, but I haven’t run that up the flagpole at home. And Naomi’s the CEO. At home, we play borderlands three. Well, we played the other ones, but yeah, Borderlands Three is a game we’ll play together. We like to play for an hour or two and then watch a show at night. That’s our thing right now.

Scott Cowan [00:37:05]:
That’s your thing.

Fran Dunaway [00:37:05]:
Okay.

Scott Cowan [00:37:06]:
All right. Very cool.

Fran Dunaway [00:37:10]:
Have you played that?

Scott Cowan [00:37:12]:
I have not played that one. I allow myself SimCity build it on my okay, okay. And I’ve purposely disconnected my credit card so that I can’t buy in game purchases.

Fran Dunaway [00:37:30]:
Brilliant. Brilliant.

Scott Cowan [00:37:32]:
Yeah. So that’s where I’ve gone.

Fran Dunaway [00:37:37]:
Awesome.

Scott Cowan [00:37:39]:
Will you tease something coming in May? And I won’t push too much on that, but I do want to ask you, so I did see something you recently came out with Batman. Inspired.

Fran Dunaway [00:37:50]:
Yes.

Scott Cowan [00:37:51]:
So what’s the process, like, working with a major brand like that? Are they extremely easy to work with? Are they extremely micromanaging?

Fran Dunaway [00:38:03]:
Warner brother. Great. They reached out to us, actually, and I’m pretty far removed from the details of the day to day of the business, but, yeah, they’ve been a great partnership for us and really easy to work with. We do have to run the prints by them to make sure that they agree and approve them. But yeah, it’s been a great collab.

Scott Cowan [00:38:30]:
Okay. Any type of collaborations coming up in the near future?

Fran Dunaway [00:38:37]:
No.

Scott Cowan [00:38:37]:
Not asking about the May thing else? Yeah, no, but anything coming up for spring, maybe?

Fran Dunaway [00:38:46]:
Let’s see. For spring it would be well, we always have new prints that are dropping, but not any collabs right now. Not until May. That’s the big one.

Scott Cowan [00:38:57]:
How often do you release new prints?

Fran Dunaway [00:39:01]:
Usually once a month. Once or twice a month? Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:39:04]:
We try to wow.

Fran Dunaway [00:39:06]:
Got to keep our current customers happy. They like the new print drops.

Scott Cowan [00:39:14]:
Let me ask you this question. What’s been a print drop that was more surprising to you than was more popular than you might have thought of. Well, anything popped to mind?

Fran Dunaway [00:39:29]:
I don’t know if I can think of one that was more popular than I thought, but I do know in the early days it would just be me and Naomi, and it’d be like, you know what, let’s put dinosaurs on underwear. Our customer will love dinosaurs. And oh my gosh, we still carry dinosaurs. It’s still one of our top selling, so that was really fun. In fact, I often tell the merchandising team that if they’re looking for inspiration, they should go to the eight year old boy section of the store and see what’s selling there. And that’s our core customer. And so, yeah, colorful dinosaurs are the bomb.

Scott Cowan [00:40:07]:
Okay.

Fran Dunaway [00:40:10]:
I know, it’s pretty wild.

Scott Cowan [00:40:12]:
So your title was co founder and you were the CEO. You’ve transitioned out of that role. So what’s your role with the company nowadays?

Fran Dunaway [00:40:22]:
I’m co founder and president, and so I basically show up for our co founder things like doing podcasts and doing speaker presentations. I’ll be part of a group down in Nike in a couple of weeks. And so it’s really just wanting to tell the founder story and to work on getting that story out and then whatever else the team needs from us, we’re here to help with. But we’re out of day.

Scott Cowan [00:40:54]:
And what’s Naomi’s role? Is?

Fran Dunaway [00:40:55]:
It a similar role, but because she completed her big project, which was to get us B Corp certified. Woohoo. So last month we became B Corp certified, which really shows our commitment to community, sustainability, and just our give back values and philosophy.

Scott Cowan [00:41:17]:
That’s great. Congratulations. And how many employees are at the company nowadays?

Fran Dunaway [00:41:22]:
We have 38 employees now, and I think we’ve got two job openings.

Scott Cowan [00:41:27]:
Did you ever think that you’d be having 40 employees?

Fran Dunaway [00:41:30]:
Never. It’s crazy. But the interesting thing about where we are now, because we’ve kind of moved out of startup phase and we’re now into real corporation. And so the skill set that we needed to build the company were generalists. We needed people that were utility knives that could do a lot of things, and now we’re moving into scale, so we have specialists. So it’s been really remarkable. I’m incredibly proud of the team that are still here, that have been able to adapt from being a generalist to a specialist. And then I’m also incredibly impressed with the caliber of customer or of employee that we’re able to bring in next two years.

Scott Cowan [00:42:14]:
What do you envision TomboyX looking like in a couple of years?

Fran Dunaway [00:42:18]:
I want to continue to see the company grow and scale. I think that we’re a lifestyle brand and that we’re here to stay and that we’re here to make a difference. And so I want to be the next 100 million dollar company. So look out.

Scott Cowan [00:42:33]:
Okay. I am not too worried about you making that, actually. If you don’t want to count your pennies before you get them. Yeah, exactly. Well, I want to wrap this up because I know, like you mentioned earlier, you’ve got more shows today doing your busy woman. Tacos or pizza?

Fran Dunaway [00:42:56]:
Depends on the day. Yeah, I guess I’d probably go pizza first.

Scott Cowan [00:43:01]:
Toppings.

Fran Dunaway [00:43:02]:
Oh, pepperoni, mushrooms, and black olives.

Scott Cowan [00:43:06]:
Where’s a great place to get a cup of coffee that I might not know about? In the Seattle area?

Fran Dunaway [00:43:11]:
Oh, gosh.

Scott Cowan [00:43:14]:
And that’s my polite way of saying, I know Starbucks.

Fran Dunaway [00:43:16]:
Yeah, exactly. We’ve got a place by us that used to be called Bird on a Wire, and it’s a little coffee shop just over in West Seattle, located, I think, on Barton and 35th. So a secret little spot.

Scott Cowan [00:43:34]:
Okay. And when you go there, what would you be drinking?

Fran Dunaway [00:43:37]:
Oh, double tall, non fat latte.

Scott Cowan [00:43:41]:
And what would Naomi be drinking?

Fran Dunaway [00:43:43]:
She would be drinking the same thing, actually.

Scott Cowan [00:43:48]:
What? Haven’t I asked you that I should have?

Fran Dunaway [00:43:51]:
Well, you got the gaming question, so that’s the one that most people miss. Let’s see. You should ask us about how much we give back because it’s an important part of who we been from the beginning. We’ve always had a charitable component of the business, and that continues to this day. So I’m really proud of the relationships and the organizations. We’ve been very involved with Mary’s Place locally, as well as youth care. And then internationally or nationally, there’s a Trevor Project, which helps LGBTQ kids who are suicidal. And then internationally, there’s an organization called Safe Place, and it is a place that it helps LGBT refugees find housing when they’ve had to leave their hostile countries.

Scott Cowan [00:44:45]:
Okay, actually, I came up with another question.

Fran Dunaway [00:44:47]:
Okay, great.

Scott Cowan [00:44:49]:
If you could meet one entrepreneurial person, alive or deceased, who would you want to sit down and have coffee with and talk to?

Fran Dunaway [00:45:06]:
Well, I’ve always said, I don’t know if she qualifies, but the difference that Cheryl Sandberg made in my life and in our lives and in women entrepreneurs’lives, with the book that she wrote called Lean In, we happened to really benefit from that because it changed the way that women were thinking about helping each other. I think that for a long time, you have to elbow your way into the boys club, and once you’re in there, you’ve got to guard your space. And Cheryl said, we got to stop that. If we don’t help each other, then no one is. And I think that is absolutely the truth. And that thought and that mentality just spawned all of these different organizations in various cities. And then women started helping each other and building networks and opening doors and leaving doors open behind them. And I think that that’s really made a tremendous difference with our business and the fundraising.

Scott Cowan [00:46:11]:
Actually, more questions are popping into my brain. I’m going to give you the power of the general manager, because since you wore a twelve jersey, who’s the starting quarterback for the Seattle seahawks this coming season.

Fran Dunaway [00:46:24]:
I don’t know. I wish they’d get copernic. I know it’s controversial.

Scott Cowan [00:46:34]:
No, it shouldn’t be.

Fran Dunaway [00:46:35]:
I know.

Scott Cowan [00:46:36]:
My reservation about him is he hasn’t played in five years. That’s the reservation I have. And I almost feel like the expectations I don’t think would be realistic for what could be delivered on the field.

Fran Dunaway [00:46:51]:
Right.

Scott Cowan [00:46:53]:
That’s my honest reservation about the five. And I can’t believe it’s been five years.

Fran Dunaway [00:46:59]:
I can’t either. Wow. Look, as long as it’s not Tom Brady, we’re going to be all right.

Scott Cowan [00:47:06]:
Well, he’s coming know.

Fran Dunaway [00:47:09]:
I know that didn’t last.

Scott Cowan [00:47:12]:
And I’ll be honest with you, the Russell Wilson thing followed with Bobby Wagner was a very gloomy I’m still depressed.

Fran Dunaway [00:47:22]:
I can’t say that I was surprised, but I’m more excited about the Kraken and the Seattle storm back in the convent pledge arena. That’s exciting. I was looking at it used to be a season ticket holder for the storm, so I’m ready to get back into that.

Scott Cowan [00:47:41]:
Okay. And have you been to any Kraken games?

Fran Dunaway [00:47:44]:
No, I haven’t. I had an opportunity to, but I gave the ticket to my dad instead, so he and Naomi went.

Scott Cowan [00:47:51]:
Oh, nice.

Fran Dunaway [00:47:52]:
Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:47:53]:
I have not been to one. I’ve never been to a hockey I know. And I got to have one of these conversations with the krakens radio play by play guy, and he just kind of looked at me like, what? You’re talking to a hockey guy and you’ve never been to a hockey.

Fran Dunaway [00:48:11]:
Go.

Scott Cowan [00:48:12]:
Are you are you a baseball fan at all?

Fran Dunaway [00:48:15]:
I used to be. Back in the know, when we lived in Kansas City, I was a royals fan, but I go to the games once in a while, but I don’t really follow it.

Scott Cowan [00:48:25]:
That’s not your sport. So if you had to pick one team to root for and you can only pick for one team, who would you root for?

Fran Dunaway [00:48:31]:
Seattle storm. All day long.

Scott Cowan [00:48:33]:
Okay.

Fran Dunaway [00:48:34]:
Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:48:35]:
Okay.

Fran Dunaway [00:48:36]:
Go storm.

Scott Cowan [00:48:38]:
I felt like there was one other question on the tip of my tongue, and this is where I always this is the informal nature of things. Well, I want to thank you for your time, and I think what your company is doing is amazing, and I love to see successful businesses make a difference.

Fran Dunaway [00:48:56]:
Thank you.

Scott Cowan [00:48:57]:
Actually, I do know what my last question. So you mentioned earlier that when you were fundraising to start, you’re knocking on the doors of white guys, and now you have a better rolodex.

Fran Dunaway [00:49:11]:
Very.

Scott Cowan [00:49:12]:
Are you seeing a change in the market of investors to being more diverse?

Fran Dunaway [00:49:22]:
Yes, and I think despite the dismal numbers, still, last year 2% of institutional dollars went to female founders. But there have been in the nine years since we started this, and really we didn’t start fundraising until 2015, so it hasn’t been that long when you look at the scope of things. But the reality is that a lot of women have started new funds. We’re challenging the way that people think about what makes a business successful. The venture capital model has been very much winner takes all, as opposed to think about if you have a portfolio of ten companies and all of them do well, or all of them become 500 million dollar companies, think of the jobs that you’ve created, think of the businesses that you’ve created and sustained versus one unicorn. And so that’s a mentality that I think is changing in the way that people think about investment. And I think it’s the way of the future. It’s about taking care of communities and the environment. And so I also think that people are focusing much more on companies that share their values. When corporations were deemed personhood, I remember. And so if you’re going to be deemed personhood, you’ve got to show up and be responsible for the actions and your impact on the planet and on people’s lives. And so I think that that’s an important piece.

Scott Cowan [00:50:54]:
I agree very strongly. By chance, are you watching the show on HBO called Super Pumped the Story of Uber?

Fran Dunaway [00:51:03]:
Oh, I can’t wait to watch it. I’m addicted to those kind of shows. I haven’t watched it yet.

Scott Cowan [00:51:08]:
It’s on.

Fran Dunaway [00:51:08]:
Okay, great.

Scott Cowan [00:51:09]:
It’s on. So it’s on Sundays. And so the last episode I just watched and I was just like, it’s the other side of the Cowan from what you just suggested.

Fran Dunaway [00:51:27]:
Right, okay.

Scott Cowan [00:51:28]:
And it just feels there’s a line and I’m not going to do it justice, but basically one of the early investors was, know you’re not taking care of your people. And the founder’s line was, well, people still shop at Walmart, people still eat at Yep, they don’t care what we do.

Fran Dunaway [00:51:54]:
There you have it.

Scott Cowan [00:51:55]:
And I was just like, wow. And it was pretty powerful. And maybe like my wife said, she goes, I’m never taking an Uber again.

Fran Dunaway [00:52:08]:
I haven’t.

Scott Cowan [00:52:09]:
Yeah, I believe that the company is trying to modify its behavior, but I’m not 100% sure.

Fran Dunaway [00:52:15]:
Yeah, it’s kind of like the Victoria’s Secrets, right? It’s like, okay, now they’re pivoting, now they’re suddenly having diverse models, now they’re rethinking the way of doing. But the reality is that they were formed based on a certain set of values. And so that’s why give it a second chance? Why not go with companies and founders that were developed or because of what they believed in and they’ve stuck by that. So yeah, I deleted the Uber app many years ago and only take Lyft because of that very thing. But I think that’s the thing, we have to hold companies and people accountable for their actions regardless of if they’re in the past or not. And they’re trying to bring in new guard, but that doesn’t change the fact of what the principles that they were built on.

Scott Cowan [00:53:04]:
Right.

Fran Dunaway [00:53:05]:
So I can’t wait to watch you so much.

Scott Cowan [00:53:07]:
Yeah, no, I can’t tell you what’s enjoyable. I’m not going to tell you that you’re going to enjoy the show, but it’s going to be yeah. Going to probably make you annoyed, dare I say even angry. Yeah. Do you watch billions.

Fran Dunaway [00:53:25]:
Yes.

Scott Cowan [00:53:27]:
Okay.

Fran Dunaway [00:53:27]:
And try to get caught up in the theranos one read the book.

Scott Cowan [00:53:33]:
I haven’t done that one.

Fran Dunaway [00:53:34]:
Oh, that’s incredible. And then the sackler dope sick.

Scott Cowan [00:53:39]:
Yes. I haven’t watched that either.

Fran Dunaway [00:53:41]:
Yeah. So I read that book about the sacklers and talk about get angry. I mean, it’s just horrifying, but yeah, I’ve become quite the addict for any kind of business topic books.

Scott Cowan [00:53:55]:
Well, I will tell you this, because last night, after watching the episode of Super Pumped, I went and looked on my iPad and looked it up, and I ended up buying the book, and I started reading. Um, so this is going to wrap up in just one season, but they’re going to do another season, and it’s going to be about Facebook.

Fran Dunaway [00:54:13]:
Oh, fantastic. Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:54:15]:
That’ll be well, this we’re certainly not talking your business now, are we? Well, thank you so much. Oh, I know. One last question. You’re going to go out to dinner on a Thursday night. Where are you going to go?

Fran Dunaway [00:54:34]:
Il Nido.

Scott Cowan [00:54:34]:
I always love to hear these tips where people go in their communities.

Fran Dunaway [00:54:37]:
Il Nido in West Seattle. Amazing pasta, amazing service. Right down on Alkai in the old Homestead building.

Scott Cowan [00:54:45]:
Oh, in the old homestead. All right.

Fran Dunaway [00:54:47]:
Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:54:47]:
Okay.

Fran Dunaway [00:54:48]:
Fabulous.

Scott Cowan [00:54:49]:
All right.

Fran Dunaway [00:54:49]:
Although this Thursday no, next Thursday, I’m going to the new place, and I’m going to space out on the name in Georgetown. But the former chef at Canlis opened a place in Georgetown, and it’s weeks before you can get he’s he just opened it up, and I hear it’s quite exciting. But actually, we’re going on a Wednesday because that’s Tomo is the name. T-O-M-O yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:55:17]:
Okay. All right, well, I’ll keep an eye out on that one. I had not heard about that one. Well, thank you so much for being here. I really enjoyed chatting with you today.

Fran Dunaway [00:55:27]:
Same to you, Scott. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you.